Snakes, Mice and Bats in the Belfry

A  snake lies hid in the grass. ~ Virgil

Whew! It’s hot here in Texas (and I think pretty much everywhere) and there are snakes in the grass. We’re back on a gate – almost literally as you can see from this photo.

Snake spotting has begun and several of our gate guard friends have seen rattlesnakes at their site. As soon as Junior got the generator humming, he pulled out his weed-whacker and essentially mowed our entire yard. I’ve only seen a couple of snakes in the grass since we started gate guarding back in 2010. Ironically, they both wore white hats.

I was grateful for the short grass though and thanked Junior by giving him my lunch. The Company Man had just stopped by with true Texas comfort food: chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, fried okra and black-eyed peas (which I thought were beans). 😀

While we haven’t seen any snakes yet, Henry and I were a near miss with a skunk last night. Henry, who is sweet but not quite a watch dog, never noticed. We made it inside just fine. But something didn’t fare as well as Pepe’s perfumed wafted in about an hour later.

Then yesterday morning, the CM brought us breakfast burritos and later, grilled steak dinners with all the fixings. I think we’re going to like it here! So does the bat in our belfry and a mouse in the house. I heard him before I saw him last night. I think he was attempting to crawl into Henry’s food bowl. A grey streak shot past me, twice, and disappeared.

I got out my mighty flashlight and searched everywhere. I opened every cupboard. Nada. While we struck out with both cheese and peanut butter during the last mouse invasion, we had great success (13 bit the dust) with ranch flavored Doritos. No Doritos currently so we put little bits of bread on the sticky traps and peppered them with ranch seasoning. I’ll let you know…

Bats are, of course, the erratically flying mammals and ‘belfries’ are bell towers, sometimes found at the top of churches. ‘Bats in the belfry’ refers to someone who acts as though he has bats careening around his topmost part.  ~ The Phrase Finder

I can’t remember the last time we had the awning open. It’d been at least a week so I was surprised to see fur when we unfurled it yesterday. Yes, we had a bat in our belfry. Many might jump in here at say that that isn’t exactly something new, which is probably true, but this was a literal bat.

I felt badly, thinking that I’d probably shut him up in the awning for a week (in retrospect, I think he may have slipped in on his own). He did quite a lot of flapping about but didn’t leave his perch. This led me to believe, mistakenly, that his leg was caught, so I kept raising and lowering the awning (part way) to try to free him. I think this mostly just served to terrify him and cause him to hang on tighter.

I finally gave up and got the broom. He liked it just fine. He like it so well that he decided to stay.

Eventually, I put the bat-broom in the tree and waited and waited, at least  2 or 3 minutes. He recovered from his wild awning ride and the bright light of day; giving me a beady eyed reproof, off he flew.

And now I think I hear the pitter patter of little toenails on the floor. Of course Heidi and Henry are both sleeping so I’m left to ignore my small grey visitor all by myself.

The last round of mice were pretty sharp. They drank all of the yellow and most of the green food coloring but completely avoided the red dye. I’m hoping this one is less discriminating.

^Photo from Wikipedia - my copy is in a mouse proof box under the RV.

When I was little, I loved to look for the mouse in the room, with every reading of GOODNIGHT MOON.

Now, not so much.

Goodnight little house and Goodnight mouse

Goodnight comb and Goodnight brush

Goodnight nobody Goodnight mush

And Goodnight to the old lady whispering “hush”

Goodnight stars Goodnight air

Goodnight noises everywhere

~ Margaret Wise Brown

Tips on How to Get More Blog Readers

After one year of blogging, I thought I’d share some tips on how to get more blog readers.

The key to getting folks to return to your blog is to be a really good writer.  But if you’re like me and you aren’t, you can shoot for funny or interesting or educational or heart wrenching or just plain odd.

But the key to getting folks to find you in the first place lies in:

Categories, Tags and Titles

Categories: Uncategorized is the default category in Word Press and many other hosting sites. This makes you hard to find. No one types in uncategorized in their search bar.

If you have a target audience, post in that category. This is simple because you get to make them up.  😀 My initial target audience was just about anyone with time to kill, which is the same as Uncategorized. It took me a long time to realize a category might be a helpful addition.

Tags: Add topical tags to your post (WP recommends more than 5 and fewer than 9). People will often find you by your tags. I’ve used tags like Ruby Slippers and Goodnight Moon (because they were a part of a post) and for months, I would have people regularly returning  to Fork in search of more ruby slippers and red balloons.

Titles: This is the big one.  Accidentally mislead with your title by using a common saying or term that makes people think your post is about something entirely different. This has happened to me several times. My top three accidentally misleading titles have been: 

1. Number one, by far: Dead Man’s Hand. I’d never heard of a Dead Man’s Hand. I don’t play poker, but I do have Ace’s and Eight’s from time to time.

2. I Do All My Own Stunts  This was a post about my inordinate clumsiness, not about jumping cars with motorcycles.

3. Six Degrees of Separation: by Tooth and by Song  You might think the tooth and song part would have been a hint, but I guess not.

My degree of separation from Kevin Bacon is probably similar to my degree of separation from Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney – although their separation from each other seems to be miniscule. I’m from Iowa, so I can’t ignore the caucus tonight.

Just in case someone searches for the Iowa Caucus results and lands here, I don’t want to be misleading. It’s 1:45 a.m. and the Republican party just announced that Romney has won by an 8 vote degree of separation! That’s just incredible. Whatever your political persuasion, never think your vote doesn’t count!

I’ll re-post the 4th  misleading title tomorrow. In the mean time, if you want to add readers, you might want to consider 7 Card Stud or Texas Hold’em (I’m sure there’s a misleading post coming with that title soon)!

I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me

I see the moon and the moon sees me. I’m so taken by it, I can’t seem to do anything but stare.

It’s after midnight.

I’ve had a really good heart to heart via AT&T with a friend whose heart is hurting.

A truck rumbles in about every hour.

I’ve eaten a banana.

I’ve watched 1 dance on DWTS.

And I’ve been mesmerized by the moon.

I tried to take a picture but my little point and shoot just can’t capture it.

If you’re a gate guard in Texas who works the night shift, it doesn’t get much sweeter than this.

May has managed one more night of lovely open the screen door 60’s temps.

The night sounds are just the gentle chirping of crickets.

If you follow Fork, you know that makes this a rare night: no squealing pigs, no mad bulls, no crazed coons, no giant insects flinging themselves into the lights, no wild wind shaking the shutters. (The RV doesn’t actually have any shutters, but you know what I mean.) I’m between pots of coffee, so even Darth is silenced.

When I was little, I don’t remember ever thinking the moon was made of cheese, but I often tried to see the man in the moon. I must have been a literalist since I always thought he lived in a little house and if I watched long enough he might look out his window, step outside and wave back at me.

I don’t feel like howling at the moon. I don’t really know how to howl. If howling is anything like screaming, I wouldn’t be any good at it. I had the lead in 2 plays. I was Lady Macbeth in 5th grade. For some reason, it was in our Weekly Reader and we performed it, costumes and all. I even had to say that famous line that was that was pretty inappropriate for a 5th grader.

And I was the entire on-stage cast of Sorry Wrong Number in 6th grade.

In both cases I had to have a stunt double. I couldn’t scream, so I just opened my mouth and Sara screamed really loudly in the wings. She was a great screamer.

I’m wondering what you feel when you look at the moon?

As I watch the moon’s steady climb tonight, I’m carried back to the great green room and the old lady whispering hush.

And to a poignant moment in The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood when Sidda and Vivi sing:

I see the moon, and the moon sees me…

And the moon sees the one that I want to see..

So God bless the moon, and God bless me…

And God bless the one that I want to see.

Goodnight Moon and God bless…

Goodnight Moon

Tonight is the night everyone’s talking about the ‘supermoon’.  I’m sure it’s indeed brilliant and beautiful. I took pictures last night. Tonight is just overcast enough to hide it. The moon doesn’t have to appear 14% larger or 30% brighter to impress me. I’ve loved the moon since I was 3. It all began in that great green room…

“In the great green room
there was a telephone
And a red balloon
And a picture of–

The cow jumping over the moon

and there were three little bears, sitting on chairs

and two little kittens and a pair of mittens

and a little toy house and a young mouse

and a comb and a brush and bowl full of mush

and a quiet old lady who was whispering “hush”

Goodnight room

goodnight moon

goodnight cow jumping over the moon

goodnight light and the red balloon

goodnight bears goodnight chairs

goodnight kittens goodnight mittens

goodnight clocks and goodnight socks

goodnight little house and goodnight mouse

goodnight comb and goodnight brush

goodnight nobody goodnight mush

and goodnight to the old lady whispering “hush”

goodnight stars, goodnight air

goodnight noises everywhere.”

~Margaret Wise Brown

Thank you, Margaret. Goodnight moon…